Without a doubt, Google is synonymous with search. If you want to find anything online, you Google it, right? Yes, they’re the biggest game in town, but they’re not the only one.
Microsoft’s Bing, which has branded itself as a “decision engine” has been nipping at Google’s heels for quite some time now. When you bring a PC home from the store, Internet Explorer is the default browser and Bing is the default search engine. If your market is less than tech-savvy, this is especially relevant. They’ll stay put, and use what’s already installed and accessible.
If you rely on foot traffic for business, don’t overlook the importance of being found in local listings web-enabled phones, as well as through local search via the conventional office computer. Local search is one area where Bing excels. Check out this listing for my home town of Neenah, WI. It’s convenient, uncluttered, and easy to use.
Clicking through to the restaurant category reveals more choices. I can select a restaurant by the strength of customer reviews, by price point, atmosphere, and more.
Whether or not you use Bing isn’t the question. Your business needs to be found in its Local Listing Center.
To sign up for a Bing local listing, visit https://sssl.bing.com/listings/ListingCenter.aspx. You’ll need a Windows Live ID to sign in. Be sure to fill out your business listing as completely as you can. Use keywords as appropriate and DO link back to your Web site. Choose up to six categories for your business, listing the most important one first. As with Google, your listing will need to be verified to prove that it’s your business. Once they get in touch with you and verify your business, you’re good to go. Get out there!
Are you listed on Bing?
I use both Bing and Google search engine and i dont see much difference in their search results. I use google for searching hard to find academic topics and Bing for general search.
Local Search is definitely growing in importance. The web maybe worldwide, but as consumers become increasingly more plugged into it, they want to be able to see what is nearby. The phone book is dying off as people turn to local search to see where to eat or where to do anything. It is of utmost importance that your local business be visible to visible on the web to your local market. Visibility is not the only thing, either, consumers want detail. They want to know what’s on the menu and how much it costs. How do you compare to the place down the street? What specific products and prices do you offer? What do the reviews say? Does your location come up when I search for a service you provide on my smart phone? Bing is definitely a good place to start.
Thanks, Mike … great comment! And by the way, I love your new blog design and your new gravatar.
To my small business readers, Mike is my son. His point of view is from the consumer side, and it’s one we should all take notice of, especially if you want to reach the 20-something market. He’s plugged in, as is his wife and their friends. They won’t find your business in the phone book because they’re not looking for you there. If they want information, they look online. Will they find you next to the map in Google’s or Bing’s search results with a full profile to give them the answers they’re looking for?
Hi Shari,
I completely agree with you regarding Bing’s local listing center. Certainly the Internet has become a good local marketing tool for a business to reach the local consumer.
What I am most concerned about are small and local businesses having to contend with multiple websites when it comes to their local listing. What I’m really talking about are “time resources”.
Afterall, there are over 60 websites in four different categories specifically geared towards local listings. How can a local or small business have the time resources to cover this space.
Even if you made a conscious decision to not manage all 60, there are well more than Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask. The space goes to Local.com (they went public), Yelp, Merchant Circle, and many others.
Consumers will be the ones deciding which of these local listing websites they will go and post their experience through consumer reviews. This adds to the burden that no one single local listing website will do the trick.
Therefore, my argument is that “getting listed” is not the real services needed. The local business still has to claim, update and maintain their local listing at multiple local listing websites.
“Getting listed” is an admirable starting point, but it will not address the long term need of the local business and their local marketing efforts.
Something we recently read at KillerStartUps are companies that are offering a low cost service to update then manage these listings for companies.
It is a changing world and the local business will benefit. There will be some adjustment to this space needed.
Good information from your post and hopefully varying opinions help give perspective.
I think it is important to note that Google is not the only search engine out there. Even if it has the biggest market base, it still doesn’t own every one. That is why telling us to properly index our blogs in other search engines is a smart idea. If you have a low ranking site, it is very much possible that you won’t come up at the query, which is why you have to help them and do it manually. There are a lot of others such as Bing and Yahoo, make sure to get indexed in all of them, I’m sure there are a lot more that you can find to be indexed in. I’m not sure but I think Yahoo requires payment to be added in the directory which if there is I think it’s ridiculous. You have to pay them to be crawled on while the others provide the service for free. No wonder Google beats it hands down.
Good write-up on a timely topic. You and @yetibiker are definitely on point about customers looking for a local business online and (practically) skipping the phonebook altogether.
I’ve wanted to explore Bing and for the past few weeks have tried to access it. I say “tried” because every time I go to Bing.com, I’m redirected to a German page, Live.de. This seems an oxymoron, but when I Googled bing.com and live.de, I found lots of others were having trouble too. Seems there’s been some mixups around the globe having to do with how Bing was interpreting some meta info in the headers of webpages.
Anyway, your posting here has encouraged me to give it another try. I’ll try the link you provide for local listings. I’ll also take a look at my web page headers to make sure I’m not causing my own problems!
I love google.I never used another search engine because Google is enough.
I have already got my site indexed my Bing. I know it is not among the major source of traffic to my site, but as far as my knowledge goes, Bing’s market share is increasing rapidly and I just want to create a strong foothold on it.
@Melih: I agree that getting listed isn’t the end-all, but a necessary first step. I don’t believe that it’s necessary to be listed on every local listing service under the sun, but to concentrate on those that give the most return for your effort. Thanks for sharing your point of view!
@Michelle: There’s a free and paid listing for Yahoo’s directory. I haven’t had any success with the free version and so far, I’m too cheap to ante up the $299 for the paid one. To add more confusion, their directory and search engine listings are two entirely different entities. Getting indexed in Yahoo has nothing to do with their directory listing. It would be easy to dismiss them as a smaller player, but I’m amazed at the number of customers who use Yahoo exclusively, mainly because it’s their default search engine.
To everyone who has commented here so far, thank you!
“Great post, very useful for a beginner like me”
I use Bing and Google whenever i want to find something on the internet. I think that both search engines are very good. :
It is interesting to compare the performance of Bing and Google search but i haven’t seen any difference at all in their performance. .;
I got listed in local listing at Bing.com. More than 70% website traffic come from Google search results.
Thanks for sharing these useful link building tips.
Best regards,
Thanks for your comment, Barbara. I’m glad you found this useful.
I’ve really enjoyed browsing your website – such beautiful, vibrant artwork!
As we know most of traffic come from search engines.So we should focus on all search engines.After Google,Bing has become a good search engine.So we should also focus on Bing.When i read some good tips in this blog post,I found very helping tips which can help me more to get some exposure in my business from Bing.
Thanks for very helpful tips.
The internet is really the best tool for marketing to promote your business locally and internationally. I think both bing and google can help greatly, but to choose between the two, I dont think there’s much difference. But I think Google more popular. But yes bing and google search results don’t have much difference. But I think a lot more people use google more.
The post is very useful to me and I never used another search engine because Google is enough.